


Cling

by Lyndsaybones



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 22:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 10,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10260194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyndsaybones/pseuds/Lyndsaybones
Summary: Post IWTB, pre Revival. My take on the break up. Alternating POV between Mulder and Scully.





	1. Chapter 1

Maggie called them her clingers when they were little, Melissa and Charlie. She could scarcely stand still, let alone sit without one or both of them stuck to her like barnacles. Charlie used to wrap himself around her leg in the kitchen with his wrinkled little thumb stuck in his mouth. If Maggie was otherwise occupied, the nearest warm body would do in a pinch. Little Dana, while loving and sweet, was not nearly so demonstrative in her affections and often found herself simply trying to get some space.

Scully often thought that Mulder must’ve been a clinger as a child, because he definitely was in adulthood. When they first started sharing a bed, she’d find herself delicately extricating herself from his grasp after he’d fallen asleep. It was just too much, too hot, too constraining. The first time he woke up during her Houdini act, his feelings were obviously hurt. She’d tried gently explaining that she just wasn’t a cuddler by nature. It came out sounding like “it’s not you, it’s me.”

He seemed to understand as time went on.

When they were on the run, she’d wake up to find the hem of her t shirt bunched in his hand, or his palm flat against her sternum. Close, but not too close. And at that point, she didn’t mind so much. It was a welcome change to the yawning hole of loneliness she’d been living in without him. That first night, devoid of the soft sounds of sleep drifting through the baby monitor, she wanted nothing more than to have the gentle weight of her baby in her arms and Mulder wrapped around her like a straight jacket.

They’ve slept more years together than apart since they met. She’d gotten used to him and his big hands clutching at her in the dark, found comfort in them. It’s ironic, she thinks as she wakes. He doesn’t cling to her anymore. Most nights, he doesn’t even come to bed. All those times she spent slipping out of his grasp and now all she wants is for him to look up from that damn computer, come out of nest he’s built and hold her again.

She’s not going to ask him to choose however, because she knows what he’d decide. She saw an all too heartbreaking demonstration during the case that finally got him off the FBI’s most wanted list.

She blinks away the sleep in the stillness of their bedroom. He’s downstairs somewhere, dozing at his desk or on the old couch in his office. She didn’t tell him that this would be the last night she’d sleep in their bed. She doesn’t suspect it would have changed anything if she had. She goes about her morning with the same standard operating procedure she always has. Her bags are already in the car and after work this evening, she’ll drive to Baltimore where she will sit on the couch and cling to Maggie.


	2. Chapter 2

It is genuinely a struggle to open his eyes. He blinks once, twice and uncrosses his arms from in front of his ribs. He digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and lets out a deep and excessively loud yawn. He knows it pisses Scully off, but also gets her attention and he’d rather see her mad than not at all.

His mouth is sandpaper dry and his hair is sticking up in greasy chunks. He gives himself a cursory smell check and wrinkles his nose. Sitting up, he digs for his phone and finds it dead in his pocket. Must’ve forgotten to put it on the charger last night, he thinks.

“Scully?” he calls toward his office door.

Silence.

He finds himself fairly irritated and pushes off of the couch. He shuffles into the kitchen, searching for signs of life. Her coffee mug is hanging from the peg board over the stove, right next to his. The clock explains why she didn’t answer him, it’s half past 3. She’s still at work and he’s managed to sleep most of the day away.

Her shift calendar is on the fridge. He struggles a moment to pinpoint what day it is but settles on Tuesday, which means she’ll be home in about an hour. Plenty of time for a shower.

He heads back into the office to plug in his phone and takes note of the small tower of used paper plates and empty soda cans. Later, he thinks.

The computer pings, stopping his circuitous trek to the door. The room has become a fire hazard lately. He pauses, feeling the magnetic pull of whatever tantalizing tidbit awaits him in his inbox. He feels the internal struggle and almost immediately gives in. Ten minutes, just ten minutes and there’ll still be plenty of time to clean up before she comes home.

He looks up again, having stayed perhaps a little longer than he planned and realizing his phone is buzzing next to him. It is now dark outside. Shit.

“Hey Scully,” he answers coolly. Sound like you haven’t been in front of the computer for the last 4 hours, whatever the hell that sounds like.

“Mulder, thank God. Are you okay?”

Oh boy, he must’ve forgotten something, probably some stupid suit and tie thing for the hospital. Damn it, she’s going to rip him a new one.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Did I forget something?” he asks as he gets up. He starts gathering up trash as he balances the phone between his shoulder and ear.  
There is a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll have dinner ready for you when you get home.”

The silence is replaced with a shuddering breath.

“Scully?”

“I’m not coming home, Mulder.” She is crying, he can tell.

He is instantly enraged. “Is this because I didn’t come up? Really?”

Silence again.

“Scully, come on. Don’t do this. Don’t pull this passive aggressive crap.”

“Shut up,” she sighs. “Mulder, listen to me. The bills are set up for auto pay. The grocery service comes on Wednesdays-”

He cuts her off, chucking that trash he’s gathered to the floor. “One night?! Because I didn’t come up one night?”

“It’s more than that and you know it,” she tells him.

“Fine, yes. I don’t come to bed every night. I’ve been busy. You know I’ve been busy.”

“Yes. I do know that.” She sounds as tired as he feels.

“Scully, come on. Come home. Let’s talk about this. I’ve been missing you all day.”

“All day?” she replies in a mournful huff of air. “Mulder, I left a week ago.”

He doesn’t even realize that he’s dropped the phone and left the room until he is retching into the kitchen sink. He stumbles back to his office, head throbbing, eyes watering, and picks his phone up from the floor. A dozen missed calls in the last few days, just as many voicemails and text messages begging him to talk to her, to let her know he’s okay.

The phone illuminates and the message appears.

“I’m sorry,” it reads.

He stuffs the phone in his pocket and flops onto the couch. He tries to settle his roiling stomach with long, deep breaths. It is genuinely a struggle to close his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

She and Maggie sit at the breakfast table in silence. She stares into her coffee like it might pull her in like a black hole. She’d read somewhere that the effect a black hole would have on a human body was “spaghettification.” It sounded terrifying and fascinating in equal measure. She half wishes it would do just that. She didn’t think there could be a pain worse than burying him, but here it is. And this time he’s buried himself.  
“Have you tried calling him lately?” Maggie asks.

She lets out a mirthless laugh.

“Have I tried calling him?” she covers her face and mumbles through her fingers. “I called him twice a day for a week solid and texted him double that.”

“Well, he must be missing you, don’t you think?”

“I gotta go, mom,” she sighs as she gets up.

“Honey, I’m sorry,” she implores as she tracks her daughter’s movements around the kitchen.

Scully ignores her and dumps the last of her black hole down the drain. The grandfather clock in the living room ticks like a timebomb. She gathers up her coat and bag and heads for the door.

“Dana, wait,” Maggie calls after her.

“Do you need me to pick up anything on the way home?” she asks the door and not her mother.

Maggie’s shoulders drop and she hugs herself.

“No, I don’t need anything.”

She fills her mug when she gets to work. And again an hour later. The office assistant pauses at her desk as she drops off labs and journals.

“Are we out of creamer, Dr. Scully? I’ll tell Cindy to get some more,” she says as she makes a note on a little scratch pad from her pocket.

“No, no. It’s okay, I’ve been taking it black lately.”

“Huh, now that’s something.”

“What?”

“People change a lot of things, but rarely how they take their coffee.”

She wants to tell her that coffee with cream makes her think of being 27 again and looking at him with guarded wonder. She would love to tell her about how she’s had coffee with cream sitting next to him in greasy diners and hotel restaurants in nearly every state in the union. That it reminds her of the first morning they woke up together and he left a cup for her on the bathroom sink while she was in the shower. She wants to scream that it was the last thing she had the morning she left him.

But she doesn’t say any of those things, she just fills her mug one more time before her lunch hour. Lunch, which she spends signing a new lease instead of eating. If she eats, she’ll vomit.

“I’ve just got to get the furniture delivered and then I’ll be out of your hair,” she tells Maggie that night.

“You’ve made up your mind then?” she asks.

“Yes, I’ve made up my mind,” she says.

“Don’t you love him, Dana?”

“Loving him or not loving him has never been the problem, Mom.”

Maybe in some ways it might be, she conceded internally. This wouldn’t be so hard if her heart wasn’t tied to him like a millstone.

But she couldn’t save him without saving herself first. She’d become hypoxic under the crushing weight of his clutter and paranoia. Apply the oxygen mask to yourself before helping others. In that empty, sterile apartment, she’d taken her first deep breath in ages.

By the end of the week, the furniture is in and she is sitting alone at her new kitchen table with a cup of black coffee.


	4. Chapter 4

The front porch is his favorite place to get high. Maybe not his favorite place. More like the place she preferred him to blaze up because she didn’t want the house “smelling like a frat party.”

His actual favorite place to get high is in bed, next to her. Being stoned made her skin feel that much softer and her hair look like it was its own living thing. She went from a work of art to a masterpiece in three hits. He’d stare at her for hours if she let him. He hasn’t done that in a long time, though.   
The need for fresh clothes and his stash is the only thing pushing him upstairs and into their bedroom. He’s going to shower, change and get blitzed in every room in the house.

The bedroom smells good, clean, unlike the rest of the place. This had been the one room she’d forbade his clutter. To be fair, there’d been very little in the way of her possessions here, either. Whatever book she was engrossed in would follow her to bed. But no medical journals, no files, nothing. 

“Just one place,” she’d implored him. “I need one place where I’m not thinking about work, mine or yours. Can you give me that?”

In the end, he couldn’t. His things started creeping out of the office years ago and making their way up the stairs like vines. His nightstand is covered in clippings and articles. His notepads are haphazardly stacked on the floor on his side of the bed.

After his shower, he gets his weed from the nightstand, yanks all of his clothes out of the half empty closet and pulls the door shut behind him. He tosses his clothes across his mother’s heirloom dining room table. He sits in the oak chair at the head and rolls a perfect and precise joint.

The first hit scrapes the back of his throat and he lets out a classic stoner cough to keep it in. He wanders from room to room, ashing on the floor and humming to himself.

“Fox, what on earth?”

Maggie Scully is standing in the middle of the living room, hanging onto her purse like a life preserver.

His first instinct is to hide the joint behind his back. But he’s not a child and Maggie is not naive. So he plucks the ashtray up from the coffee table and crushes out the red hot cherry.

He stands in front of her with his head feeling buzzy and light. Her eyes seem stuck on the snuffed out joint for a moment, but then she looks up at him with those kind eyes of hers and he feels instantly ashamed.

“Did she send you?” he asks.

“No, she didn’t. She’s in no shape to be taking care of anyone but herself right now. I can see that’s the case for you as well,” she says pointedly.

“So what brings you by?” he asks, gesturing at the couch.

“I wanted to check on you,” she says as she sits cautiously.

“Me? I’m fine,” he says as he sits next to her.

“Fox, this house is a mess, you are smoking marijuana in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon and your wife has left you. I don’t think you’re fine.”

He’s not sure what offends her more, the mess or the pot.

“She’s not technically my wife,” he corrects. “We never did the whole exchanging of vows thing.”

“Marriage is lot more than vows, I think you know that.”

He does know that. He also knows that they were married long before he ever kissed her.

“I appreciate the visit. You’ve done your due diligence here,” he says as he stands again. “You can tell Dana that I’m fine.”

Maggie stands up, realizing that he’s signaling her to go.

“You two are so stubborn,” she sighs. “Come here,” she adds, arms open.

He softens. How can he not when Maggie Scully is demanding a hug?

“Thank you for checking on me,” he says into her shoulder.

“Call if you need some help cleaning this place up,” she says as she heads for the door.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” he says, following her.

“I wouldn’t!” she responds with a laugh. “I’d give you the number for my cleaning service.”

She leaves him with a kiss on the cheek and a quick wave. After she has disappeared over the rise at the end of the driveway, he heads back upstairs and into the bedroom. Late afternoon sun filters through the wooden slats of the blinds. The bed is neatly made with Scully’s tight military corners. Her books are gone as well as the robe she kept hanging on the back of the door. He finds that this where he misses her more fiercely than anywhere else, mostly because it’s the only room she really lived in lately. He’s managed to crowd her out of every other corner of the house. He wanders to his side of the bed and begins to gather his things.

He deposits the collected detritus on the desk in his office and goes out to the front porch. He drops into the ancient metal chair and re-lights his joint. She really doesn’t like it when he smokes in the house.


	5. Chapter 5

It was surprising in two ways. When he grabbed her ponytail and wrapped the length of it around his wrist, she was shocked. Even more shocking, she liked it, a lot. The twinge of pain set off an unexpected chain reaction as he pushed her clit like a panic button. She’d never come so hard before.

She’s hardly taken off more than a quarter inch at a time since then. Her hair falls over her shoulders and down the middle of her back, catching the light like a brand new penny. She hates it.

She is surprised to find that her old hairdresser, Gayle, is still in DC. She hasn’t seen her since she and Mulder fled.

“Dana! It’s been so long! Where’d you get to?” she asks her reflection as she combs her fingers through Scully’s hair.

“We found a little place in the country,” she says, trying to feign happiness, trying to remember what her genuine smile looks like.

“So you aren’t with the FBI anymore?”

“No, I’ve been practicing medicine again.”

“Well, good for you. How’s your son? I bet he’s all grown up now, huh?”

She thought maybe this would come up, but it still fills her with white hot dread. She catches her own reflection and course corrects the terror and sadness from her face.

“He’s taller than me, now,” she lies. “Loves basketball, just like his dad.”

“I haven’t seen him since he was a baby. How old now?”

“14, William is 14.”

Gayle shakes her head and pops her gum.

“Where does the time go?” she sighs. “So, what are we doing today, just a trim?”

“No, cut it. Leave just enough so I can tie it back for surgery.”

Gayle looks at cautiously at reflection Dana.

“That’s taking off about twelve inches. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” reflection Dana says.

She manages to keep up the small talk, listening intently as Gayle tells her about her husband’s stroke, her daughter’s messy divorce.

“What about your husband? How’s he doing?”

She wants to say that they were never married and that she doesn’t even recognize him anymore. But she’s been lying this whole time. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Maybe reflection Dana is married, married to her writer husband and they live with their beautiful son in a perfect little country house. Then again, reflection Dana probably doesn’t like getting her hair yanked while being fucked from behind.

“He’s fine,” she says softly. It may be the biggest lie she’s told thus far. The rest of it is not only possible, but extremely likely.

“All done.”

Her hair falls just above her shoulders and she takes a shuddering breath. She is surprised on two fronts: that reflection Dana is smiling and that she likes it, a lot.


	6. Chapter 6

An ancient, rusted pickup truck is rumbling down the driveway, kicking up a white cloud of gravel dust behind it. It is Quentin, dropping off the weekly grocery delivery.

The first week, Mulder did not bother to get off of the couch, asking the young man to drop everything on the porch. The second week, he met Quentin at the door and took the hefty box from him. This week he is on the front porch watching him pull the box from the bed of his truck like it is filled with feathers instead of groceries.

“Hey Mr. Mulder,” he greets as he jaunts up to the porch. His smile is broad and deep dimples sink in each of his cheeks.

“Just Mulder, Quentin. I hear ‘mister’ and start looking for my father,” he says as holds open the screen door.

“Yessir,” Quentin answers. He is built like an ox, stout and solid with a neck very nearly wider than his head.

“Getting warmed up for the season?” Mulder asks as Quentin sets the groceries on the kitchen table, which he managed to clear off earlier this morning.  
“Oh yeah, I can’t wait.” he says, dimples sinking again.

“Cornerback?” Mulder asks.

“Yessir.”

“I’m noticing a shocking lack of processed food here, Quentin,” he says as he looks over the contents of the box. The usual staples are there, milk, bread, lunch meat, his favorite chunky peanut butter, but the rest is hard to identify.

Some part of him hates that she is doing this, forcing him to cook rather than nuke. It’s a lot easier to fully wallow in self pity when you can stay alive with as little effort as possible. The amount of control she has is unsettling.The idea that she stops at least once a week to think about what he’s eating, but doesn’t call him, is…something.

“What is this?” he asks, pointing at shock of dark leaves.

“That’s kale. It’s good to put in energy shakes.”

“Energy shakes? Shakes have ice cream, not lawn clippings.”

“It’s really good!” Quentin says enthusiastically. “I’ll show you. Where’s your blender?”

“That’s okay, buddy,” he says, too embarrassed to say that he thinks Scully took the blender when she left.

Quentin looks momentarily crestfallen but is quickly distracted by noise coming from his pocket. Mulder thinks it is an odd ringtone at first, but quickly realizes that the sound is more organic.

“Quentin, there’s a kitten in your pocket.”

“Yeah,” he answers with a smile. “Somebody left four of them in a box behind the store this morning. I managed to give the others away, she’s the last one.”

He draws a miniscule ball of striped orange fluff from his jacket. His meaty hands covering all but a wobbly head and squinty eyes.

Mulder reaches out and rubs his index finger against the kitten’s forehead.

“Ya gonna keep her?”

The thought of Quentin hauling a kitten around in his gym bag while he does squats is fairly amusing.

“I can’t,” Quentin says sadly. “My little sister has asthma. Do you want her, Mr. Mulder?”

“I haven’t had much luck with redheads lately,” he says, dropping his finger away from the fuzzy little creature.

“I bet she’d make a good mouser,” Quentin says hopefully.

Mulder narrows his eyes at him. A cat seems like work. Work, that if he should fail, would not be something he could simply flush away. Although, the mice have been a repeated pain in the ass. He’d found Scully standing on a chair more than once. Hell, ended up standing on a few chairs himself.

Quentin smiles and shrugs, holding the kitten up like an offering.

“If football doesn’t work out, you should really consider going into sales.”

Quentin smiles and gently transfers the kitten into Mulder’s waiting hands.

“I’ll see you next week, Mr. Mulder,” he says as he heads to the door.

“Do me a favor, Quentin? Drop the kale and add cat food, please?”

“Yessir,” he says.

Mulder cradles the kitten against his chest and scrubs his fingers behind her ears as he watches the truck trail away. The kitten tucks herself into the crook of his elbow and begins to purr.

“You’d better take care of the mice or you’re going to be eating all the kale.”


	7. Chapter 7

Pop…Pop…Pop…

She understands what the sound is before anyone else does and acts off of muscle memory. Her scalp tightens and the back of her neck feels like it is on fire. The flutter of her heart and bitter taste of adrenalin under her tongue is like a numb limb coming back to life. It’s been over a decade, but she still reaches for her holster as she crouches behind a nurse’s station.   
“What was that?” a voice asks.

“Get down!” she urges in a sharp whisper.

An intern huddles close to her and begins to cry. She hushes him and instructs him to call hospital security. She steadies herself and dials 911.

“I don’t wanna die,” the intern whispers.

“We’re not gonna die,” she assures him. She realizes she doesn’t even know his name.

The 911 operator instructs them to shelter in place and that help is coming. The two of them sit under the desk surrounded by computer cables and cobwebs.

“How many shots did you hear?” he asks, tears still on his cheeks.

“Three, it sounded like a hand gun.”

“How can you tell?” he asks.

“I’ve got some experience,” she tells him.

He stares at her wide-eyed. He’s young, so young, possibilities in front of him like an open road. He’s right to be scared.

There is no sound in the hallway, save for the occasional murmur from inside the rooms. She’s got three kids on the ward today, all of whom had a parent with them when she did rounds less than hour ago. None of them are alone, and neither is the young intern.

He is nearly hyperventilating, hugging his knees and staring blankly. She grabs his arm and squeezes gently.

“What’s your name?” she asks softly.

He looks around, eyes like saucers and unfocused.

“Hey, you need to take a deep breath. Tell me your name,” she says.

“J-Jeff.”

“Okay, Jeff. I want you to concentrate on your breathing.”

She demonstrates by taking a long, slow breath in through her nose and blowing it out like she is extinguishing a candle. Jeff follows suit and after several long minutes, he is able to normalize again.

“Good,” she tells him. “Just stay calm.”

An hour later and the building is declared clear and she emerges from her hiding place shaky and exhausted. They are debriefed on the situation by a SWAT officer and released.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Scully,” Jeff says. “I really lost it.”

“It’s okay, you’ve got a lot to lose,” she says softly.

He nods shakily and walks away.

She gets about ten steps down the hallway before she veers off into the nearest bathroom and vomits into the sink.

Her phone vibrates and she doesn’t even look before answering.

“I’m okay,” she says between great gulping breaths. “I’m okay.”

“Dana? Honey? Oh thank God! I turned on the news and saw…oh my God, oh my God,” Maggie’s words devolve into tears.

“I’m okay, Mom. I am,” she says, eyes closed tight against her internal panic. “It happened outside the ER, I was on the second floor. Only minor injuries, the shooter is in custody. It’s okay.”

“I was so scared. I thought I’d lost you,” she sobs.

“It’s okay, I’m okay.”

The rope between her and her composure snaps as soon as she ends the call. Rationally, she knows Mulder doesn’t realize what’s happened. He doesn’t watch television, he barely looks up from his dark web conspiracy theory echo chamber. But she wanted so badly for it to be him calling.

She gives herself a few minutes to break down and then gets it together. She cleans up her smudged mascara, takes a deep breath and walks out to go check on her patients.

She works the rest of the day, pushing down the niggling disappointment that grows by the hour. By the time she walks to the parking garage, she feels like she is moving against a current.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice gravelly and low.

Her head snaps up and she finds him standing behind her car, hands stuffed in his pockets. She feels herself shrink a little and her face becomes hot as the tears rise.

“No,” she whimpers.

Three quick strides and he is wrapped around her like a straight jacket. She needs it because she feels like she’s gone mad. Muscle memory takes over and she presses her cheek against his sternum and clutches the back of his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “You’re okay.”


	8. Chapter 8

She fits into his embrace like a key in lock. The tumblers trip and his heart swings wide open. Take it all, he thinks, it was always yours.

She is tremulous in his arms, like a scared rabbit. He can’t help but be reminded of how many times they’ve lived some version of this moment. 

“How did you get here?” she asks his chest.

He doesn’t have a car, nor a driver’s license for that matter. Nothing in his name, not even a bank account or a prescription. No databases for this Spook, no siree. No bread crumb trail. The only way to him is her.

The only back to himself is her.

“Quentin gave me a ride,” he says.

“I hope you gave him some gas money. That’s a long drive,” she says softly.

“He saw the news and came to get me, wouldn’t take a dime. He’s got a little crush on you, you know.”

“I’m old enough to be his mother.”

“It’s a Mrs. Robinson, hot-for-teacher kinda thing.”

She pulls back a little and looks up with a startled smile, as if she didn’t expect him to be able make jokes anymore. Her expression is hard to decipher, but it looks something like relief.

His fingers dance along her jaw and fall into her hair. Her eyes are wide and in the poorly lit cavern of the hospital parking garage, they look navy blue and sad, like dark edge of a sunset.

“You changed it,” he remarks as his fingertips drop away from the blunt ends of her hair.

He realizes she is biting the inside of her lip, her first line of defense against tears.

“I had to.”

He nods. He takes a deep breath against the silky crown of her head. She smells like hospital hallways and too many cups of coffee, as she always does at the end of the day. If there is anything else there, he went noseblind to it years ago. He wishes it wasn’t so. He vaguely remembers a rich, spicy smell, like cinnamon and cloves. If it’s still there, he can’t find it anymore. If it is gone, he cannot pinpoint when it left.

It’s like a lot of things. It was as if one day, he just stopped seeing her. And of course, that is part of the problem.

He places his hand, perhaps without the right to do so, at the small of her back and gently guides her to the passenger side of her car.

“Take me home?” she asks.

Asks.

Jesus, she feels like she has to ask to go to her own goddamn house.

She fell asleep almost as soon as they left the city and now sitting in the driveway, he feels like it was a mistake bringing her here.

She blinks awake and when her eyes meet his, he doesn’t see regret.

“Can we just…just for tonight,” she starts.

“Yes,” he finishes.

He follows her up the stairs, watching the sway of her hips and the way her calves flex as she climbs each step. He can’t remember the last time he’s looked at her this way.

He hasn’t been back in their bedroom in weeks, he’d locked it up tight. In his mind he did, anyway. It figures she would be the only one able to unlock it.

Like a key in lock, he slides home. Her eyes are screwed shut and she turns away from him, giving only the sharp line of her jaw and the throbbing column of her throat for him to kiss. And kiss them he does, leaving red marks in the wake of his stubble. She is frenzied under him, breathing through clenched teeth, clawing at his back.

“I’m gonna…” she sighs and trails off.

He kisses the sweet spot behind her ear and she goes taught as a bowstring. He closes his eyes and lets go.

After, he flops onto his back, panting like he’s just finished a 5k. She curls into him and wraps an arm over his chest, hanging on for dear life.

“I thought I was gonna die under that desk with Jeff the Intern. I thought that…what if we’d never…”

She’s struggling to put words to the moment, he knows. He was having the same problem earlier in the day when word came over the police scanner.

What if I never see her again? What if I can never make this right? What if, what if, what if…

In the morning, the pale light streams in and he knows before he even opens his eyes. She’s left.

He rolls over and buries his face in her pillow when it catches him, drifts over and around him like a swirling tide pool. Cinnamon, cloves, something spicy and sweet.


	9. Chapter 9

She sits alone at the kitchen table, coffee mug in hand. The slick ceramic warms her palms. It’s so chilly here in the mornings.

She should have stayed there with him, she thinks. But then again, the mistress is supposed to leave in the morning, isn’t she?  
She realized it much too late. Somewhere between Tulsa and Barstow while she carried a stranger’s name and wore another woman’s hair, it came to her. He’d ducked out of their hotel room in the middle of the night to meet someone, an informant or like-minded conspiracy theorist. He never explained who it was.

With everything on the line, their very lives at risk, he still couldn’t resist a lead. She knew then. She was no match for the chase, the grand mysteries, the TRUTH in flashing neon lights. She realized that she was the other woman. He swore it wasn’t so, that he’d give it all up for her. It wasn’t even really what she wanted. His passion and drive are part of why she loves him. Sometimes, she just wanted to be the first thing on his mind.

She just wanted him.

When they settled in the quiet little house, she swore they were happy. She really thought they were.

In the month since she’d left, she’s been performing the longest post mortem of her life, slicing open the body of their relationship and weighing each and every part. She catalogued all the wounds, some more healed than others. Sometimes she’d been the one to inflict them, other times it was him. The deepest ones, they’d held hands and sunk the knife in together.

She determined, after rigorous examination, that no one injury did the job. It was death by a thousand paper cuts. And they are both guilty.

“You’re still here,” he says.

He is at the bottom of the stairs clad only in threadbare pajama pants, looking bleary-eyed and confused.

She looks down at her coffee and squeezes the cup a little tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, rising from the table, “I’ll go.”

He crosses the distance between them and grasps her elbow. She doesn’t know where to look, but she can’t make herself look at him.

“You don’t have to go,” he says.

She can tell he’s trying to catch her eyes, approaching her like a skittish animal. And she does feel skittish, because there’s a conversation that needs to happen and she’s nowhere near ready to have it.

“At least finish your coffee first,” he says as he starts to ease into his chair.

She mirrors him and sits back down. Her eyes are drawn to the flash of orange fluff that darts for Mulder’s feet.

“When did you get a kitten?” she asks after a long sip. She forgot how good it is with cream.

“A few days ago,” he says as he reaches down and scratches at the kitten’s back. She purrs and hops up against his hand.

She watches as the tiny creature weaves figure eights between Mulder’s ankles.

“What’s her name?”

“Uh, Cat. I named her Cat.”

“Cat?”

“Yeah, like in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Holly has a cat named Cat.”

She is stunned. He fell asleep during the movie. She distinctly remembers his head lolling against the back of the couch not 30 minutes in.

“I better go,” she says as she stands again. “I have a shift today.”

He nods and taps his fingers against the table.

“Can I call you later?” he asks.

She pries her gaze away from the kitten and looks him in the eye. He is looking at her like he’s got new eyes, like he’s seeing her for the first time. She wants to tell him no.

“Yeah, I’ll be off by 8.”

He stands and is inches from her. He reaches out presses his palms against her cheeks. He kisses her forehead and it feels so good that she could cry.

“I’m glad you stayed,” he tells her.

She bites the inside of her lip and nods. This is why, these moments when he makes her feel like the center of the universe are why she forgets that she is his mistress.


	10. Chapter 1o

They’ve talked every day since she stayed over. She emailed him a copy of her schedule and he calls her an hour after her shift is over.

They’ve kept the conversations light. “How was your day?”…”What did you do for lunch?”

He does not tell her that he can’t sleep in their bed without her. He doesn’t say that he misses her like a phantom limb. He won’t tell her that he’s sorry, even though he is, very sorry. 

He’s fairly certain they’ve spoken more in the last four days then they have in the last four months, which is about the saddest thing he can think of. Today, she’ll be off at 5 o’clock and he’s seriously considering asking her to dinner. There are, of course, transportation issues to be resolved. But he’s got help in the form of an 180 lb teenager who has a major crush on his potential date.

He and Quentin are currently sailing a football back and forth across the yard and discussing strategy.

“Dr. Scully is okay? The crazy guy didn’t get near her?”

The football whizzes at him in a perfect spiral and slaps his palms with a satisfying sting.

“She was shook up, but she’s okay,” he says as he lobs it back.

Quentin breaks left and plucks the ball from the air.

“Is she coming back?” he asks as he whips it again.

“I don’t know,” he says as he snaps his elbow and lets go.

His toss comes off wobbly this time, but Quentin has no problem projecting the trajectory and making a perfect catch.  
He wonders briefly if William likes football, but the thought is pushed away as the ball whumps against his chest and nearly knocks the wind out of him.

“You should go big if you’re gonna ask her out,” Quentin says.

“Go big?” he coughs.

“Where’d you go on your first date?”

The very plausible state of Oregon.

“We uh…we weren’t very traditional I guess. I don’t think I ever asked her on a real date.”

Quentin is visibly gobsmacked, so much so that the football sails past him and bounces onto the driveway.

“Mr. Mulder,” he says as he palms his forehead. “I don’t want to tell you your business, but that’s just terrible.”

Mulder winces, realizing that he’s being schooled on romance by someone who isn’t old enough to vote.

“It kind of is, isn’t it?”

Quentin crosses the distance between them and claps his heavy hands on Mulder’s upper arms.

“Dude, I had to ask Cassie to homecoming with a giant sign and flowers and I only kind of like her. You like, totally love Dr. Scully. You gotta step up your game.”

“Got any suggestions?”

“What makes her laugh?”

“Very little.”

Quentin’s broad shoulders slump and he looks at Mulder like he just isn’t trying hard enough.

“There’s gotta be something.”

“Look, I’m gonna have to take this slow anyway. There’s no rushing her. Dinner is just step one.”

“What’s step two?” Quentin asks.

“Probably dinner again.”

Quentin smiles, all white teeth and dimples.

“As long as it’s not Ramen noodles and warm diet Pepsi,” he says. “Dr. Scully would not be impressed with that.”

“I was thinking Taco Bell drive thru.”

Quentin finds this hilarious and doubles over with uproarious laughter.

“Don’t get my beautiful truck involved in none of that mess, Mr. Mulder,” he half gasps.

“What? Taco Bell is gourmet dining!”

Quentin shakes his head and waves him off as he walks to his truck.

“Let me know if you need it tonight,” he says, still laughing. “I’ll run her through the carwash.”

“Thanks Q!”

He checks his watch and heads inside. Cat is perched on the back of the couch and dozing. He doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful for it, but she’s forced him to get things a bit more organized. Left to her own devices, she will knock over any stack, shred any loose paper and pee on anything he’s left piled on the floor.

He sets about cleaning up the kitchen to burn time until he can call her. Cat has cleared the counter of empty soda cans for him. He tips the trashcan over and slap shoots them in one by one with the broom. Cat looks thoroughly unimpressed. Scully would be unimpressed too because he’s not recycling them. Baby steps.

He checks his watch again and waits until the hour and minute hands form a perfectly vertical line before pulling his phone from his pocket. It starts buzzing and her name illuminates the screen before he has a chance to dial. An unexpected warmth blooms in his chest.

“Hey,” he answers with a smile.

“Hey.”

She sounds tired. He immediately back tracks on his plan to ask her out.

“How was your day?”

She sighs.

“Long. One of my patients has a post-op infection,” she says softly.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. And he is, for so many things.

“Do want to go get something to eat with me?” she asks.

He straightens up his posture and clears his throat.

“Uh yeah, sure. Should I meet you somewhere?”

“I’m almost there,” she says.

“What would you have done if I said no?”

“I don’t know,” she says, followed by a long pause.”Did you want to say no?”

“No.”

“How’s Mexican sound?” she asks.

“Sounds great.”


	11. Chapter 11

It is a shitty little Mexican joint. “Mexican” is a generous word for the fare served here. It is a reasonable facsimile, artificial, but close enough to be comforting. Kind of like her apartment. Kind of like the easiness she is trying to pass off with a smile over her plate of chicken fajitas. 

She’s held off on telling him. For many reasons. Mostly because of his propensity for self-flagellation. Mulder isn’t Mulder unless he finds a way to blame himself. And this can’t keep being about him.

“Is your patient going to be okay?” he asks as he sinks his fork into a burrito the size of a loaf of bread.

She shrugs a little and pokes at the chicken still sizzling before her.

“I hope so. Kids can turn around pretty quickly,” she says.

“I was going to call you tonight and ask you to dinner,” he says with an almost sheepish grin.

She can almost picture him, pacing the living room, working up a plan to call her. It’s a little unfair, she realizes. She knows their home and his habits well enough to imagine what he’s up to when she feels lonesome for him. She can have that little bit of comfort. He does not have the same luxury. He doesn’t even know she has an apartment now.

“I need to tell you something,” she blurts.

He pauses mid chew, his cheek fat like a chipmunk’s. He straightens up and swallows, hard.

“What it is it?” he asks.

She can see him running through the possibilities, his agile mind skipping from one nightmare to another.

“I started having anxiety attacks again,” she says.

Again.

They’ve been through this before. And it was awful.

She realized there was a problem about three months after she’d come out of the coma. She couldn’t remember where she’d been or what had happened to her, but she could remember Duane Barry’s forearm across her hyoid and the thick bacterial smell of his breath. And even worse, if she thought about him choking the air out of her, she could feel it happening all over again.

Every time. So many times.

She didn’t tell Mulder, she couldn’t bear the pity in his eyes. But there was no hiding it when she began gasping for air in the middle of their office. He held her until it passed. She found a psychiatrist the next day.

Pills. Therapy.

Donnie, Melissa, Gerry, Ritter, Padgett, Donnie again.

William.

William.

William.

More trauma. More pills. More therapy.

She’d managed. She felt like she’d kept some sort of control. Even if it was a false sense of security in the form of an emergency Xanax in her pocket.  
With everything she’d been through, she found a way to stuff each hurt into it’s own little box and bury it deep, keeping the anxiety attacks at bay. It wasn’t the healthiest option, but she was making it work.

But life on the run meant no therapy, no prescriptions, no help, no more making it work. Nothing but the two of them with her traumas and sins playing in a torturous loop on the open road ahead. Everything she’d buried crawled back and threatened to pull her under. She’d felt so completely hopeless and isolated. When the depression set in, she felt like it was her penance and suffered in silence.

He’d found her, after weeks of fake smiles and fake orgasms and fake sleeping, huddled in the corner of a scummy motel bathroom, shaking and sobbing. She was so ashamed.

He disappeared for 20 minutes and came back with a dime bag of pot and over the counter sleeping pills. He got her high and tucked her into the scratchy sheets. She floated like used plastic bag in the wind and felt just as hollow and thin. She hated it. She did not want to be saved. She wanted to burn. He paced the room with a pre-paid phone pressed to his ear.

“We have to be able to stop. She needs help.”

Two weeks later, they came out of cold and into their little house. She got help. She learned to manage again.

“When?” somewhere, someone asks.

She blinks.

“Scully, when did they start?”

She gulps.

“About six months ago.”

“Are you off your meds?” he asks, eyes narrow and very nearly accusing.

“No.”

“Then what?”

She picks at her thumbnail and blinks away a tear.

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She tries not to scoff at that.

“I didn’t want…” she trails off, wiping the tears off of her cheeks.

“You didn’t want what?”

“I didn’t want you to want me just because I’m struggling or because you feel obligated, guilty…whatever.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I think…I know that we both need to focus on ourselves right now. I can’t save you and you can’t save me.”

His jaw is tight, the tendons flexing as he grinds his molars together.

“So this isn’t so much dinner as it is ‘goodbye’?” he asks, his eyes boring a hole in the table.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“What are you saying?”

“I need…time,” she sighs.

“You couldn’t tell me this a month ago?”

“I couldn’t tell you anything a month ago.”

He looks stunned and then angry.

“Right,” he says as he stands and pulls out his wallet. He pulls a couple twenties out and drops them on the table.

“Mulder, wait. Please?”

She feels the dread rising in her chest and wrapping around her lungs.

“Why don’t you call me when you think I’m well enough to help you?” he growls as he walks away.

She covers her face and tries to slow her breathing.

Later, in her sterile apartment, under her stiff new sheets, she drifts into an artificial and dreamless sleep. She hates it. She does not want to be saved. She wants to burn.


	12. Chapter 12

When he came back from the dead, she was 34 weeks pregnant. 6 weeks from her due date. He learned when he poured over all of the books, that a pregnancy is 40 weeks and not 9 months. Some things must be counted in weeks.

Admittedly, he didn’t know much about pregnancy to begin with, but to find out that he didn’t even really have a grasp on the duration was a little disheartening. The books compared the size of the baby to foods, so he’d make a weekly trip to the store to examine a sack of flour or a squash. He’d test their weight in his hands and think, wow, something this size is growing inside of her.

He’d watch Scully too, trying to tell if she was suddenly able to take deeper breaths because the baby had dropped or if she was showing signs of excessive edema. He watched the way she pressed her palms into the small of her back, how she smiled half heartedly when he offered her a hand up from her chair.

After William came, he left. And kept measuring time in weeks. 6 weeks, babies start to smile socially, in reaction someone, usually a parent. 12 weeks, he was probably rolling over. 24 weeks, sitting up unassisted, 30 weeks, crawling, 34 weeks, pulling up to a standing position. He spent 44 weeks away from them. Enough time for him to say his first words, take his first steps, enough time for Scully to make the hardest decision of her life.

They ran, going from one disgusting hotel to another for 8 weeks solid. He watched her fuse sizzle in a slow, terrible burn the whole time. And on William’s first birthday, he stopped counting weeks. He stopped counting anything but her breaths. She’d vanished into the bathroom and locked the door. He’d feared for some time that something was coming. Considering the calendar, the big boom was inevitable. But it didn’t happen the way he thought it would. Not an explosion of rage and pain, rather, she collapsed in on herself. It was like watching a building implosion on mute. He jimmied the lock and found her curled up in the corner, hyperventilating and shaking.

“In and out, Scully,” he’d begged. “In and out with me, c’mon.”

He scooped her up from the floor, cradled in his arms and took her to bed. After the drugs kicked in and she slipped under, he wrapped himself around her in way that she would never let him do if she was conscious. His hand spanned the width of her collarbones and he counted every breath. He realized, as he held her that she was neither the fuse, nor the bomb. She was the spent match.

Now, standing on Maggie’s doorstep, he is again measuring time in weeks. 9 weeks since she left. 5 weeks since she slipped back into their bed. 4 weeks since he left her crying in a crappy restaurant. He’s tried calling her every day since. Tried. She won’t answer.

“She’s not here, Fox,” Maggie says kindly. The pity in her eyes is too, too much.

“I know,” he says, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Can you just…can you tell her that I came? That I need to talk to her?”

“I can’t reach her, not for a few more days,” she says.

“Where is she?”

“She checked herself into a mental health facility. It’s a 4 week program.”

It’s astonishing that it hadn’t happened sooner, honestly. He knows he’s earned his reputation for instability, that the jokes about Spooky Mulder have been around pretty much his entire adult life. But Scully, she’s the strong one. People never understood, and never could understand or overcome what she has.

The fact that she’s not spent the last 15 years in a padded room is a wonder. How many can say that they’ve ever been kidnapped, let alone kidnapped repeatedly? The number of times that death crossed her path, nodded, and kept walking is staggering.

“Fox?” Maggie calls softly. “She loves you. She does. But you have to wait until she’s ready.”

He blinks at Magaret Scully with her beatific eyes and sad smile.

“Will you tell her, when you talk to her, that I’m not giving up?”

Maggie’s smile broadens and she reaches out and cups his cheek.

“You never have.”


	13. Chapter 13

How do you feel?

She must ask that question a couple dozen times a day. She’s used to it being about the corporeal body. Pain? Rate it on a scale of one to ten. Burning? Dull? Sharp?   
When people ask her how she’s feeling, she says she’s fine. A little stiffness in her shoulder sometimes, twinge in her lumbar every now and again, nothing too bad. I’m fine.

In four weeks, no one asked her that, no one.

They asked WHAT she was feeling.

What.

She struggled to put words to it at first. She wanted to talk about the uncomfortable chairs in group therapy or the tendon pain in her right thumb. Anything, anything, anything but her emotions. What she felt was buried so deep and digging for it was just so hard. But the words did come and once they started, she couldn’t make them stop. They rose up like a cataclysmic wave and destroyed her carefully constructed fascia.

Shame.

Grief.

Rage.

Fear.

Isolation.

Desolation.

It was as if she’d discovered a limb she never even knew she was missing. See how much easier it all is with both hands, Dana?  
When she arrived at her apartment, she plugged in her cell phone for the first time in weeks. As it blinked to life, she tensed from head to toe.

Anxious.

47 missed calls. 31 of them from him.

Remorse.

Of course, labeling her emotions is not the same as healing. She knows this.The time she spent in treatment was meant to find the wounds, to name and confront what she’d been through. She went to find her way back to the surface. And now, she feels like maybe she’s starting to see daylight again.

She navigates to her contacts and taps his name. She shakes her free hand like she’s trying to air dry it and bounces on her heels a little.

Nervous.

He answers on the first ring.

“Hi,” he says, something like wonderment coloring the simple greeting.

“Hi,” she says tentatively. “It’s me.”

“Yeah,“ he confirms, a smile in his voice. "How do you feel?”

She pauses and closes her eyes. Saying that she’s been torn down to her frame work and is slowly rebuilding is a bit fraught and lot to discuss over the phone.

“Better,” she tells him. 

It is true. Very true.

“Can I see you?”

Relief. She smiles.

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

Joy.

She hasn’t felt that one in a long time.


	14. Chapter 14

Headlights slice through the inky darkness of the front half of the property. Sitting on an ancient metal chair, he squints into the darkness and runs a hand down Cat’s sleek back. She has gotten more lanky and is hovering somewhere between kitten and grown feline.

“We’ve got company,” he tells her. Cat is indifferent. 

The massive SUV squeeks to a halt, gravel crunching under the tires and kicking up a little cloud of white dust. She looks frozen in her seat, eyes wide.

He offers her a smile, but doesn’t move to get up. He wants to wait until she’s ready. Besides, Cat has a habit of digging her claws into his lap when he moves without her consent.

She kills the engine and unbuckles her seatbelt. He wants to skip this part and get right to the schmaltzy romance movie stuff. The part where they declare their undying love and make passionate love on the nearest flat surface. 

But this isn’t a movie and Scully’s never been one for too much saccharine.

The stairs creak under her white canvas tennis shoes as she makes her way to him. He scoops his fingers under Cat and lifts her from his lap like a wet rag. She wakes and arches into a long stretch when her paws make contact with the porch.

“Hi, Cat,” Scully greets.

Cat yawns and melts into a fuzzy orange puddle under the chair.

“She’s not much of a conversationalist,” he says.

She looks surprisingly good, like she’s put some much needed distance between her skin and her bones, a little sunshine on her cheeks, maybe. She doesn’t look like she’s freezing cold, which is how he always thinks of her, hunched shoulders, crossed arms. Even in the oppressive Virginia summer, she looked like her teeth would start chattering any moment.

“So she let’s you do all the talking?” she asks as she leans up against the railing.

“You didn’t really come here to talk about Cat, did you?” he asks.

She bites the inside of her lip and looks at her feet.

“No, I didn’t. I came to apologize.” She looks up, her chin still tucked in.

“For what?”

“For a lot of things,” it comes out like a whisper. “I should have told you I was going away.”

The image of of how he left her crying flashes like a photo negative when he closes his eyes. He has been ditching her, one way or another, for over 20 years. Disappearing into the void in their own home was perhaps the biggest ditch of all.

“You don’t owe me any explanations, Scully.”

“Don’t I though?” she asks.

“No, you don’t. But I’m here to listen to anything you need to say.”

He stands and is pulled in by her gravity. Under the artificial light of the porch, he can see a version of her he hasn’t seen in a very long time. Wide open, like a gushing wound.

“I thought that I was leaving because of you,” she says softly. “I thought I’d find some peace if I could just get out of your orbit. I’ve got so much tied to you. I blamed you for so much.”

“But?”

“We’ve spent so many years in survival mode, just trying to get by, that I didn’t realize all the things that I was pushing down or how much I pushed you away. My therapist says that I’m like the moon with you, only showing you one side and always about to be eclipsed.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

His chest constricts.

“I’m sorry,” he says, reaching for her. His hand falls on her hip.

“You’ve never changed. You’ve always been…Quixotic.”

A ghost of a smile chases over her lips and evaporates as quickly as it appeared.

“Wasn’t Don Quixote crazy?”

She reaches out and takes his hand.

“Passionately dedicated,” she says and the smiles blooms. It’s been so long since he’s seen it, he’s breathless for a moment.

“Dedicated to all the wrong things for too long. I wanna get this right, Scully.”

He leans in an pauses, unsure if he’s earned the right to do this again. She presses up on the balls of her feet and meets him halfway, catching his lips like a firefly. His breath hitches and his hands fall to the magnetic poles at small of her back and the back of her head.

She makes a happy little noise at the back of her throat and nibbles at his lip. He pulls back, his mouth buzzing.

“Come in?” he asks softly.

She blushes and nods.

“Come home?” he clarifies.

She looks up like she is searching for a constellation.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do. A lot to talk about.”

“Whatever it takes,” he tells her. He’s fairly certain he’s never meant anything more in his life.  
__________

“I was thinking,” he says as he trails his fingertips up and down the skin of her spine, swirling like he is mapping Tranquility Base.

“Uh-oh,” she replies sleepily.

“I think the therapist got it wrong,” he says as he stares at a water spot on the ceiling.

“Oh yeah?” She shifts and rests her chin against his chest.

“I think I’m the moon.”

She quirks a suspicious smile.

“And that makes me?”

“The sun,” he says as he combs his fingers through her hair. “I don’t shine unless you do.”

She rolls her eyes and chuckles softly.

“Oh brother,” she murmurs as she pillows her head against his chest again. She is quiet for long time.“Goodnight, moon,” she whispers.


End file.
